Mind Is a Frequent, but Not Happy, Wanderer: People Spend Nearly Half Their Waking Hours Thinking About What Isn’t Going on Around Them

ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2010) — People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they're doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy. So says a study that used an iPhone web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects' thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives.

...contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.

So every so often they interrupted these people and asked them if they were thinking about what it was they were just doing and if they were happy? What sort of answer were they expecting?

Am I happy? No, I was right in the middle of something and you interrupted me with this stupid survey.

Am I thinking about what I was doing? No, not anymore.

Was I before you interrupted me? No not really I was wondering in the back of my mind when this stupid app was going to interrupt me again.

This sounds to me like a self fulfilling experiment, sort of like if she floats she's a witch, if not she's not, either way the accuser wins

Device: Liseuse: Irex DR800. PRS 505 in the house, and the missus has an iPad.

As the report mentions, not to be tied to the present moment is a considerable cognitive achievement that most creatures do no have the ability to do. However, to be able to escape the constraints of the present moment is not the same thing as having a wandering mind - thinking in a focused and coherent way about, for example, how I am going to run a meeting this afternoon is not the same as letting my mind wander. I'm not sure the report recognizes this distinction.